The Day When Sajmi?te Opens its Doors for the Third Time

On this day 82 years ago, 11th September 1937, Sajmi?te opened its doors for the first time. Then, it was a Fairground, a place for trade and promotion of the newest technical achievements. Second time when it opened its doors it was a place of death - a German concentration camp. Will it open its doors for the third time - as a place of remembrance and education?

The Fairgrounds - Sajmi?te

On this day 82 years ago, 11th September 1937, the brand new Belgrade Fair (Beogradski Sajam) opened its doors.

In 1937 Sajmi?te was a symbol of a new, bright future, a place where Serbia (being a part of Kingdom of Yugoslavia then) was to become a part of the modern Europe.

By building the Fair, Belgrade city crossed the river Sava and materialized an urban planning project on the other side of the river for the first time, thus opening a new perspective of development of the city.

During the first years of its existence, the fair was attracting many investors and manufacturers, thereby opening a new perspective for development of economy, too. Apart from Yugoslav, new international pavilions were being opened: a Hungarian, a Romanian, a German, an Italian, a Czechoslovakian, a Turkish one… Some of them were leased to certain big companies so that they could have their own pavilions.

Enjoying a very modern ambient and its beautiful architecture, a great number of the citizens of Belgrade were frequently visiting the fair to look at exhibits, including some of the brand new technical achievements of the time. Thus a Dutch company “Philips” broadcasted the first television program in the Balkans from their pavilion at the Belgrade Fair. During the Belgrade Fair Aeronautical Exhibition a Czechoslovakian company “Skoda” constructed the tallest steel tower for training of the parachutists in Europe at the time, the tower being 74 meters high. Concerts of classical music and art exhibitions were organized within the space of the fair.

Among the Belgrade citizens it was a very popular destination, where they could enjoy not only looking at exhibited products from various parts of Europe, but also a wide range of restaurants and shopping stands.

Crossing the river Sava, the city of Belgrade was about to become a true European metropolis. But instead of being a road leading to the bright future, the Fairgrounds would soon become a place where people were going to face terrible suffering and death, when during the German occupation of Serbia it is turned into a concentration camp.

Concentration Camp at Sajmi?te

First it was a Jewish camp. It operated from 8th December 1941. From April to May 1942, 6.320 Jews were killed in the gas van (Gaswagen) - a mobile gas chamber. Since the Jewish men were mostly executed in mass shootings during the autumn 1941, by killing the remaining Jewish women and children in the camp at Sajmi?te, as the Nazis so cynically put it in their report, “the Jewish question in Serbia was solved”.

The death camp at Sajmi?te remained a symbol of the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jews in the occupied Serbia.

After Germans have killed all the Jews they could identify and arrest in the territory of Serbia under German occupation, they turned the camp into a detention camp for the captured members of the resistance movement and Serbian men from the territories where military operations were conducted (largely from the Independent State of Croatia) and their deportation to forced labour and concentration camps in Germany, Norway and other places. The Detention camp at Sajmi?te was infamous for its harsh conditions and cruelty. From the end of May 1942 to the end of July 1944, out of about 32.000 inmates, mostly Serbs, 10.636 were killed in the camp.

You can read more about the concentration camp at Sajmiste on Ester.rs

Will Sajmi?te open for the third time - as Memorial Center?

Today, 82 years since it opened its doors for the first time, this authentic site is in shameful state: ignored, dirty, neglected, in state of decay. It is identified by International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance IHRA as one of endangered authentic Holocaust sites with urgent need for proper preservation and memorialization. 

Since May 2019 Serbian Government has assigned the Ministry of Culture to lead a Working Group with the task of drafting a Law that will regulate preservation of the site, and foundation and organisation of a new Memorial Centre at Staro Sajmi?te. We support this important step and the commitment by the Government, and the Working Group members. It seems that this work has gone quite long, and that the new Law might indeed be ready for ratification this year.

But there is still a lots of work ahead.

Various important stakeholders need to be consulted and involved, too. There is accumulated expertise in Serbia among representatives of academia, historians, archivists, educational experts, NGO activists, whose opinions should to be taken into account in this process. Naturally, representatives of victims' groups such as the representatives of the Jewish and Roma communities, as well as of The Partisan War Veterans' Association SUBNOR, must be involved as well. Finally, the Law has to pass the discussion and ratification process in the Parliament.

We are particularly pleased that the IHRA is ready to offer its expertise and support to Serbia during this process, and that senior members of the Serbian government and other relevant decision makers recognise the value of cooperation with IHRA on this important work.

Staro Sajmi?te has historical, commemorative and educational significance of huge international value, much beyond Serbian borders. Memorial Centre at Staro Sajmi?te has potential to become an exciting international educational centre for trainings of teachers and other multipliers in the field of teaching and learning about the Holocaust such as librarians, archivists, museum workers, and many others.

Just as the Belgrade Fair back in 1937 could have been, the Memorial Centre at Staro Sajmi?te can become a symbol of a new era, a place where Serbia will become a part of the modern Europe.

Our current task is to turn this place of suffering and oblivion into a place of learning and remembrance. Could we afford to be optimistic about the prospects of this finally becoming reality, after so many decades?

(pictures: Historical Archives of Belgrade, Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade, private collections, photo of Sajmiste 2019 by Misko Stanisic)